Frankprimalrivers,
I think that is important. Remember, too, that not all small groups necessarily are accepting. As a person with autism, I was horribly bullied in small groups while in school and elsewhere.
However, one thing that often causes me to feel disturbed by many proponents of tribalism and Rewilding is their insistence that they have to impose tribalism to everyone else. Granted, the people here on the forum do express a desire to Rewild, but I’ve always been a believer in diversity. I know many people who would despise Rewilding as well.
One thing I have always felt is that one of the biggest flaws in Civilization is it’s insistence that their way is the way everyone should live. Civilization used this mindset to displace a lot of tribal cultures, a tragic reality of our history. Yet to me, even with the arguments that tribalism is the way humanity is the most “evolved” to live, imposing tribalism and rewilding on all of humanity and telling everyone how to live seems just as wrong, and locked into the same “civilized” mindset that we are trying to fight against.
Probably the biggest tragedy is just how much many people would have to sacrifice things that are important to Rewilding in order to pursue the hunter-gatherer, neo-tribal future. I agree with many others here on how important Family and Community is to Rewilding. Yet, as I’ve said before, my entire family is tied to civilization, and so is my social community. And my autism has made it difficult for me to live independently–in fact, despite being in my late 20s, I’m still legally living with my parents and my family within civilization, which limited abilities to go out on my own.
Rather than repeating myself again, I’ve concluded that I would rather stay with my family and community within civilization (who will never be convinced to leave or abandon it), than go off and find a community or tribe with people I have only heard of via the Internet or people I have never met, and separate from the people who are there for me in person. Sadly, civilization has put me in this position, but I personally don’t think that in any hunter-gatherer society, a person would value the idea of leaving their community to go elsewhere. As people have noted on the forum, not all of rewilding consists of connecting with a “more-than-human” world, rather, rewilding also involves building tribes and family networks within your family. And I shall go down with my family and the community I belong to.
And I also will try to implement some of the brilliance I see here regarding rewilding. I may have initially tried to fight and challenge the notions, as Dickens, for example, regarding the verb “to be,” but that was because I was only 18 back then and didn’t really understand what was being said. In retrospect–I actually agree with the spirit of “E-Prime,” even though I often find it hard to say everything without the verb “to be,” due to the limitations of English. I always hated people using “god-like” statements in their work, and ironically, it was the same “god-like” attitude I sensed due to the verb “to be” that caused me to defend that very verb, not realizing what I was actually doing! It’s amazing how a little time and maturity can cause you to become so much more respectful and aware of others.
Again, those are just my thoughts. I wish everyone the best here in their efforts to rewild.